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★ 【真方】 「 lain 」 ☆ ✔ republished w/permission ⊳ ⊳ follow me on twitter

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Eren wanted this life too... 😭😭😭

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I’m crying missing my lover I don’t have the power On my side forever Oh, where is my lover And I got no power I’m standing alone, no way Calling out your name

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進撃の巨人 Alternative Covers

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eren how dare you hurt them

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Official art by animator Mushiyo

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Elisabeth Hewer, The Boy I Love Left Me for a Revolution

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I just want some closure...

Just a little something...

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I’ve seen a take that claims Mikasa is not important or needed in the story as she (apparently) doesn’t affect or push the story forward. What do you think?

That’s an interesting question, actually. I would like to read that take! Could you please send me it via inbox? :)

Okay, before starting I want to answer this question. Is AoT a plot based story or character driven?

Plot based stories often have an apparent antagonist or the character has to go from point A to point B, while character driven ones mainly function because of characters motivations, inner transformations and relationship between characters. Sounds familiar? Yes, AoT is a heavily character driven story that explores an abstract concept like freedom.

The main questions of the story are “How people can achieve freedom in a world with the repeating cycle of hatred? What is freedom itself? Is it a power? Is it love or full independency? What’s life itself? Are people born free or they become free? Is death meaningless? How does it feel like to be a soldier? Should we recklessly sacrifice ourselves and others?”.

All these questions are explored by individual characters and Mikasa has one the main roles in exploring the concept of freedom.

First of all, what is Mikasa’s characteristic that Isayama himself used in her character? Pride. Mikasa helps us to understand what is pride.

What’s pride itself?

Pride is, above all, the feeling of self-respect and self-worth. It’s about knowing that your life and you are important and valuable.

Mikasa knows that she is a soldier who worths 100 normal soldiers. She knows that loosing her will cost them a lot of looses. Mikasa knows her worth and she values her life.

Why does Mikasa always continue to fight? Because she has pride. If she dies, memory of her loved ones will be buried with her. Mikasa doesn’t only value her own life, but others’ as well. That’s why she always tries to save others. Yes, she won’t hesitate to kill or threaten someone who tries to take others’ freedom (life). But she will never let people she loves to die as her parents. She uses her pride and power to let others live.

Now, let’s look at the moment when she encouraged someone to live and fight.

She encouraged Eren to fight. If Mikasa wasn’t there in ch.50, Eren wouldn’t attempt to punch Dina and active the coordinate. The ch.50 itself was a turning point of the story and later the plot started to revolve a lot around Eren‘s Founder. Mikasa’s words became a big push in the development of the story and they strongly affected the whole narrative. Mikasa’s presence was important.

How does pride help us understand the concept of freedom?

Pride is being able to not be ashamed of your life and yourself. It’a about embracing your identity, doing what you want for yourself and accepting yourself as you are. When you actually accept and free yourself from the boundaries that keep you, you are finally free. You finally achieve freedom.

Another concept that Mikasa portrays is love. The love that goes beyond all boundaries, conditions and dimensions. The love that’s unconditional and free. The love that motivates you to live.

Love for Mikasa is a motivation. She fights for people she loves and it’s another part of her pride. She knows the worth of her people, because she simply loves them. She wants to remember them, because she loves them.

Mikasa’s fear is loosing people she loves, because in the past she couldn’t fight for her parents. But her fear pushes her to fight and win. Mikasa shows people that you can stay independent and free, while being in Iove with someone.

Mikasa saved many people our her free will, she knows that they are precious to someone. Even if they can’t fight, Mikasa will do it for them. She doesn’t want others to lose their loved ones as she did.

She saved Historia from a titan that tried to attack her. If Historia died on that day, we wouldn’t find out about Reiss/Fritz family, more about monarchy on island and have Eren’s further development.

Moving to more recent instances where Mikasa’s love was important are ch.123 and ch.138.

Eren, who was conflicted about the rumbling plan, wanted to find a reason to not do it. He wanted someone who will change his mind and that someone was Mikasa.

Mikasa’s feelings for Eren could change the outcome. She could affect Eren’s actions and, again, the plot would be much much different.

Lastly, her choice to disagree with Eren’s idea of forgetting him and continue to fight, made Ymir smile. Her love and pride impacted Ymir Fritz herself, a person who was trapped in Paths for 2000 years and tried to find an answer for “What’s love?”.

How love can connected to freedom?

When you love someone and don’t tie your love to some conditions, limitations and boundaries, you give the person the right to choose and act as they desire to. Having the right to choose itself is freedom. Loving someone doesn’t make you less independent.

Besides being the symbol of pride and love, Mikasa helps us understand and enrich the world wilding within AoT universe.

As we remember, Mikasa’s mother was a descendant of Hizuru’s shogun, who moved his people to Paradis. However, as time passed by Asians were hunted down and Mikasa’s mother had to live in mountains, where she met an Ackerman and had Mikasa.

Hizuru had an important role in the last arc as Kiyomi proposed rumbling as a way to secure the island for 50 years. Yes, Mikasa was used as a reason to come to the island, but, nevertheless, her bloodline was important to make Eren come up with his current plan.

And, of course, we can’t forget about the Ackermans. The whole existence of Levi, Mikasa and Kenny explores the concept of Ymir and this whole titan things as Ackerman are a byproduct of titan science, who are immune to memory manipulation and possess a great amount of physical strength.

But besides their relation to titan science, Ackermans also contribute to freedom, because they are the freest people on the island and their bloodline is free from Ymir as they can’t be turned into titans or manipulated by Founder’s powers.

Without Ackermans we would never know about the struggles of previous Founders (Kenny and Uri), the concept of meaningful death and having no regrets (Levi and Erwin), and unconditionally loving someone and yet opposing that person (Mikasa and Eren).

How does Mikasa push the story forward?

My answer is...Mikasa’s relationship with Eren is the biggest force that pushes the story. Again, AoT is a character driven story, where the relationship between characters matters.

Every time, when these two have a heart-to-heart moment, it’s always the turning point of the story (ch.50, ch.123 and ch.138).

The reason why Eren tried to get stronger and learn to control his power is to give his friends and loved ones a peaceful and happy life with no hate or threat. As Kruger and Grisha said:

“If you want to save Mikasa, Armin and others, carry out this mission to the end and learn to control this power”.

Even when he publicly turned himself into a titan, it was to protect Mikasa and Armin from cannon fire.

All what Eren does is for his loved ones and Mikasa is definitely one of those people.

Saying that Mikasa is irrelevant, unnecessary or doesn’t push the story is debatable, because her characters carries a lot of thematic and symbolic meaning. Her relationship with other people and presence are important and helps to unleash more plot points.

Isayama didn’t make her the centerpiece of the story and his literal trademark just to be considered useless.

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SEE YOU LATER...

-Shingeki no Kyojin-

(#Phone Wallpaper)

Credits: Hajime Isayama's Arts.

Color by me.

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*SNK/AOT CHAPTER 138 SPOILERS*

There, I drew over it to make it what we all wanted it to be like.

Credit: Isayama’s artwork

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“The world is cruel, but also very beautiful.”

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“Your eyes hold the truth”

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If we don't win... we die. If we win... we live.

If we don't fight... we can't win. Fight. Fight.

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E · M · A

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TVアニメーション 進撃の巨人 原画集 第3巻 #8~#11収録 Art Book